As commerce continues to embrace the Internet and to become dependent upon it, events happen that enterprises cannot control directly. For example, reputable researchers conservatively estimate a single worst-case worm could cause $50 billion dollars in economic damages in the United States alone. [Nicholas Weaver and Vern Paxson, “A Worst-Case Worm,” The Third Annual Workshop on Economics and Information Security (WEIS04), Digital Technology Center, University of Minnesota (May 13-14, 2004).] Worldwide, CEOs of major corporations fear a $100 billion dollar global risk event. [“Silently preparing for the $100 billion cyber-catastrophe risk,” News Alert, mi2g (16 Feb. 2004).]
Many smaller Internet events happen more frequently, for example: a slow link several hops out; redundant web servers that turn out to be on nonredundant paths; congestion affecting multiple enterprises simultaneously; cable cuts; or a worm that causes collateral damage through an ISP neighbor's unpatched servers. Unfortunately, such force majeure risks are invisible to the enterprises impacted by these risks.
Regarding Internet performance, methods for collecting data, detecting perils, characterizing perils, detecting anomalies, and characterizing anomalies are known. Unfortunately, at present this information cannot be adequately displayed graphically. In particular, graphical information regarding nodes, edges, and latency of interest in a network cannot be displayed in an on-going, interactive mode.
Thus, there is a long-felt need to provide a means to graphically display the above referenced risks, including context about extent and duration. Specifically, this display is needed by insurance brokers with respect to selling related insurance, by network engineers and financial officers to discuss network problems, by government agencies and other sources of reputation systems to alert industry and the public to specific problems, and by companies to explain problems to their customers.